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The problem is that "taking all disaster scenarios into account" is easy in hindsight, but maybe not in planning. But I believe that modern nuclear power reacto

The problem is that "taking all disaster scenarios into account" is easy in hindsight, but maybe not in planning. But I believe that modern nuclear power reactors can be build intrinsically safe. For me, the real problem begins with the treatment of the waste: It's hard to find a good place to store it or reprocess it. Not so much because finding the actual place is hard, but because using that place will face hard opposition of the locals, which leads, at least in a democracy, to a political compromise for the location (to see this in action, look at the story for long term storage in Germany). If I have to chose between nuclear power and democracy, my vote is on the latter.

option 8y ago
nuclear waste is not as big of a problem as most people think.
- davrosthedalek 8y ago
  Not technically, but politically. Look at the demonstrations against castor transports in Germany.
- ansmithz42 8y ago
  I will support nuclear if you have a solid solution that will work for the waste for the island living populations of the world. Hawaii for example. If a good solution for the waste can be presented there, we can more effectively move forward. Looking just at large continental areas when solving the problem leaves some holes to fill. Not saying nuclear is bad, it does have a solid cost presentation and a low pollution foot print.
  - baddox 8y ago
    I mean, if the world switches largely to nuclear power, it’s probably fine if small populated islands that don’t have anywhere to store nuclear waste keep using whatever power source they’re using now (or switch to other clean energy sources if possible). There’s no reason to let the perfect get in the way of the better.
- rndgermandude 8y ago
  As long as shit like this happens, I consider it a big problem: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/recycling-atomic-waste-nuclear-materials-stored-in-siberian-parking-lots-a-654969.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/recycling-atomic-...
- specialist 8y ago
  Once Hanford's contaminated ground water reaches the Columbia River, it will render every place downstream uninhabitable. eg Portland OR. I think that's a big problem.
scarygliders 8y ago
The positive thing about hindsight is that we the human race can learn from it and subsequently re-design things like nuclear power plants, amongst a whole swathe of other technology. Situated in an earthquake/tsunami-prone land? Situate backup generators on higher ground, build tidal walls sufficiently high. The human race is built upon hindsight. Who was the first human who unfortunately tried eating a poisonous plant? We subsequently learned which plants were safely edible and which were not, for example. So don't go dissing those who speak with hindsight - we humans stand on the shoulders of those who, unfortunately, lost their lives for everyone else to have the knowledge to progress :/
- davrosthedalek 8y ago
  I'm not dissing anybody, but I believe that there are more ways something can go wrong than we have tried yet. Luckily, our progress is not only dependent on hindsight.
  - scarygliders 8y ago
    My response was not directed at you personally, but was a response in general for the benefit of everyone reading the topic. The point being that the human race's total knowledge and subsequent forward movement is based entirely on "that <event> happened therefore <these lessons have been learned and subsequent actions shall be enacted>."
- merb 8y ago
  > The positive thing about hindsight is that we the human race can learn from it and subsequently re-design things like nuclear power plants, amongst a whole swathe of other technology. most reactors fail because of humans and money, how can you learn about that? just look at fukushima, some problems were known, but the management have found that such a event cant happen and saved some money here and there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Warnings_and_design_critique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Powe...
wisty 8y ago
Look at Australia. We've been very easily influenced by the coal lobby. If there's plenty of jobs and investment flowing in, we'll do the same for nuclear.
- elgenie 8y ago
  Australia has huge amount of unusable dessert on the interior of the continent that could easily be used to store spent nuclear fuel. It's honestly nuts that they use carbon-emitting fossil fuels at all given their nuclear, solar, and wind potential.
  - aryehof 8y ago
    A colonialist perspective, would see it as "unusable desert" ready for nuclear waste. The original owners, Australian Aborigines, would certainly not.
    - elgenie 8y ago
      Population density argues otherwise [0]. The aboriginal population of Australia pre-colonization is estimated to be around 750K spread out over nearly 3 million square miles. There may be differing perspectives about how much of it is unusable, but the debate is between "most of the continent" and "even more than that". A nuclear waste storage facility in an unvisited portion of the outback would rank rather low on the list of bad things happening to the indigenous people of Australia, wouldn't you say? [0] https://www.mapsofworld.com/australia/population.html https://www.mapsofworld.com/australia/population.html
  - perilunar 8y ago
    And some of that desert is already mildly radioactive, due to a. uranium deposits, and b. atmospheric nuclear tests in the 50s.
BurningFrog 8y ago
The obvious solution is to store it in an unpopulated location. Only 15% of the Earth's surface is populated. Yes, observant reader, parts of the ocean floor are some of the best candidate areas.
- dorgo 8y ago
  Lol, plant a reactor on the ocean floor and then let's compare cost/kw to wind and solar..
- Tomte 8y ago
  > Only 15% of the Earth's surface is populated By humans.
  - BurningFrog 8y ago
    Humans do wield the most political power to stop nuclear storage, given the traditional passivity of the Lizard people.
kenneth 8y ago
I'm not so sure I'd pick Democracy over nuclear power. Recent years have made me question our idea of the absolute superiority of Democracy. Look at the clusterfuck that is the US "democracy" vs the success of Singapore or even China. The rest of the Western world in Europe is barely better off than the US. On the other hand, not getting nuclear power deployed ASAP everywhere essentially means the long term destruction of our planet. So all in all, I don't think it's nearly as clear cut a decision on nuclear vs. democracy, and if forced to choose I may pick the former.
- microcolonel 8y ago
  > success of ... China Not sure I'd take that definition of success. China seems like an absolute failure in the face of almost certain success. The CCP seems to ruin every good thing about the Chinese culture, suppress every positive instinct, and punish every decent behaviour. They absolutely do not care about your silly environmental causes, and if you got in the way of any one of their state-sponsored ecological disasters, you would be crushed like roadkill. I think nuclear power generation is an excellent idea, but if it is somehow incompatible with representative democracy, there just isn't an option, I guess we have to find some other good way to generate power. Though I think the idea that the two are incompatible is nonsense.
- learc83 8y ago
  >Look at the clusterfuck that is the US "democracy" vs the success of Singapore or even China Tell that to the millions of people in concentrations camps because they practice the wrong religion or were born into the wrong ethnic group. China also produces more carbon dioxide emissions than the US and Europe combined and it's growing at a faster rate, so I don't think you can say that the Chinese model is offering up a better solution for climate change.
petre 8y ago
A considerable part of the waste can be reprocessed and further burned in fast breeder reactors, creating fuel for the conventional ones. The rest can be vitrified and stored. Why we don't already do this? Fear of nuclear proliferation, breeders are quite expensive, anti nuclear sentiment.
- rocqua 8y ago
  What are the radioactive properties of the end product like? E.g. does this produce waste with longer half lives? Lower initial radiation?
  - petre 8y ago
    https://youtu.be/rv-mFSoZOkE https://youtu.be/rv-mFSoZOkE Longer half-lives = less radioactivity.
  - DennisP 8y ago
    The waste from fast reactors is just the fission products. It's about 1% as much waste by volume as conventional reactors. Encased it in glass, and the overall mix will be back to the radioactivity of the original ore in a couple centuries. The waste from conventional reactors is the fission products plus lots of U238, a fair amount of plutonium, some U235, and various transuranics. The transuranics and plutonium are the really long-lived radioactive waste.
- pfdietz 8y ago
  We don't reprocess spent fuel because it's a net economic loss to do so. The separated plutonium is sufficiently difficult to turn into fuel that, far from saving money, it costs more than just enriching fresh uranium.

option 8y ago

nuclear waste is not as big of a problem as most people think.

davrosthedalek 8y ago
Not technically, but politically. Look at the demonstrations against castor transports in Germany.
ansmithz42 8y ago
I will support nuclear if you have a solid solution that will work for the waste for the island living populations of the world. Hawaii for example. If a good solution for the waste can be presented there, we can more effectively move forward. Looking just at large continental areas when solving the problem leaves some holes to fill. Not saying nuclear is bad, it does have a solid cost presentation and a low pollution foot print.
- baddox 8y ago
  I mean, if the world switches largely to nuclear power, it’s probably fine if small populated islands that don’t have anywhere to store nuclear waste keep using whatever power source they’re using now (or switch to other clean energy sources if possible). There’s no reason to let the perfect get in the way of the better.
rndgermandude 8y ago
As long as shit like this happens, I consider it a big problem: http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/recycling-atomic-waste-nuclear-materials-stored-in-siberian-parking-lots-a-654969.html http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/recycling-atomic-...
specialist 8y ago
Once Hanford's contaminated ground water reaches the Columbia River, it will render every place downstream uninhabitable. eg Portland OR. I think that's a big problem.

scarygliders 8y ago

The positive thing about hindsight is that we the human race can learn from it and subsequently re-design things like nuclear power plants, amongst a whole swathe of other technology. Situated in an earthquake/tsunami-prone land? Situate backup generators on higher ground, build tidal walls sufficiently high. The human race is built upon hindsight. Who was the first human who unfortunately tried eating a poisonous plant? We subsequently learned which plants were safely edible and which were not, for example. So don't go dissing those who speak with hindsight - we humans stand on the shoulders of those who, unfortunately, lost their lives for everyone else to have the knowledge to progress :/

davrosthedalek 8y ago
I'm not dissing anybody, but I believe that there are more ways something can go wrong than we have tried yet. Luckily, our progress is not only dependent on hindsight.
- scarygliders 8y ago
  My response was not directed at you personally, but was a response in general for the benefit of everyone reading the topic. The point being that the human race's total knowledge and subsequent forward movement is based entirely on "that <event> happened therefore <these lessons have been learned and subsequent actions shall be enacted>."
merb 8y ago
> The positive thing about hindsight is that we the human race can learn from it and subsequently re-design things like nuclear power plants, amongst a whole swathe of other technology. most reactors fail because of humans and money, how can you learn about that? just look at fukushima, some problems were known, but the management have found that such a event cant happen and saved some money here and there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Power_Plant#Warnings_and_design_critique https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fukushima_Daiichi_Nuclear_Powe...

wisty 8y ago

Look at Australia. We've been very easily influenced by the coal lobby. If there's plenty of jobs and investment flowing in, we'll do the same for nuclear.

elgenie 8y ago
Australia has huge amount of unusable dessert on the interior of the continent that could easily be used to store spent nuclear fuel. It's honestly nuts that they use carbon-emitting fossil fuels at all given their nuclear, solar, and wind potential.
- aryehof 8y ago
  A colonialist perspective, would see it as "unusable desert" ready for nuclear waste. The original owners, Australian Aborigines, would certainly not.
  - elgenie 8y ago
    Population density argues otherwise [0]. The aboriginal population of Australia pre-colonization is estimated to be around 750K spread out over nearly 3 million square miles. There may be differing perspectives about how much of it is unusable, but the debate is between "most of the continent" and "even more than that". A nuclear waste storage facility in an unvisited portion of the outback would rank rather low on the list of bad things happening to the indigenous people of Australia, wouldn't you say? [0] https://www.mapsofworld.com/australia/population.html https://www.mapsofworld.com/australia/population.html
- perilunar 8y ago
  And some of that desert is already mildly radioactive, due to a. uranium deposits, and b. atmospheric nuclear tests in the 50s.

BurningFrog 8y ago

The obvious solution is to store it in an unpopulated location. Only 15% of the Earth's surface is populated. Yes, observant reader, parts of the ocean floor are some of the best candidate areas.

dorgo 8y ago
Lol, plant a reactor on the ocean floor and then let's compare cost/kw to wind and solar..
Tomte 8y ago
> Only 15% of the Earth's surface is populated By humans.
- BurningFrog 8y ago
  Humans do wield the most political power to stop nuclear storage, given the traditional passivity of the Lizard people.

kenneth 8y ago

I'm not so sure I'd pick Democracy over nuclear power. Recent years have made me question our idea of the absolute superiority of Democracy. Look at the clusterfuck that is the US "democracy" vs the success of Singapore or even China. The rest of the Western world in Europe is barely better off than the US. On the other hand, not getting nuclear power deployed ASAP everywhere essentially means the long term destruction of our planet. So all in all, I don't think it's nearly as clear cut a decision on nuclear vs. democracy, and if forced to choose I may pick the former.

microcolonel 8y ago
> success of ... China Not sure I'd take that definition of success. China seems like an absolute failure in the face of almost certain success. The CCP seems to ruin every good thing about the Chinese culture, suppress every positive instinct, and punish every decent behaviour. They absolutely do not care about your silly environmental causes, and if you got in the way of any one of their state-sponsored ecological disasters, you would be crushed like roadkill. I think nuclear power generation is an excellent idea, but if it is somehow incompatible with representative democracy, there just isn't an option, I guess we have to find some other good way to generate power. Though I think the idea that the two are incompatible is nonsense.
learc83 8y ago
>Look at the clusterfuck that is the US "democracy" vs the success of Singapore or even China Tell that to the millions of people in concentrations camps because they practice the wrong religion or were born into the wrong ethnic group. China also produces more carbon dioxide emissions than the US and Europe combined and it's growing at a faster rate, so I don't think you can say that the Chinese model is offering up a better solution for climate change.

petre 8y ago

A considerable part of the waste can be reprocessed and further burned in fast breeder reactors, creating fuel for the conventional ones. The rest can be vitrified and stored. Why we don't already do this? Fear of nuclear proliferation, breeders are quite expensive, anti nuclear sentiment.

rocqua 8y ago
What are the radioactive properties of the end product like? E.g. does this produce waste with longer half lives? Lower initial radiation?
- petre 8y ago
  https://youtu.be/rv-mFSoZOkE https://youtu.be/rv-mFSoZOkE Longer half-lives = less radioactivity.
- DennisP 8y ago
  The waste from fast reactors is just the fission products. It's about 1% as much waste by volume as conventional reactors. Encased it in glass, and the overall mix will be back to the radioactivity of the original ore in a couple centuries. The waste from conventional reactors is the fission products plus lots of U238, a fair amount of plutonium, some U235, and various transuranics. The transuranics and plutonium are the really long-lived radioactive waste.
pfdietz 8y ago
We don't reprocess spent fuel because it's a net economic loss to do so. The separated plutonium is sufficiently difficult to turn into fuel that, far from saving money, it costs more than just enriching fresh uranium.